Boudoir Photography Tips – Using The Right Light and Lighting Diagram

Boudoir Photography Tips – Using The Right Light and Lighting Diagram

One boudoir photography tip is to use the right light for the right situation. If you were using sunlight or natural light to light a scene, you would use a strobe, as the light “temperature” or kelvin rating would match. Whereas if you were to do a scene in a bathroom or bedroom and the primary light was incandescent, you would use either a hotlight, or use a strobe with a CTO(color temperature orange) gel on the strobe to color correct. Another popular color gel for strobe correction is called the “Bastard Amber”, made by the Rosco.

This color of gel turns the blue temperature of the strobe to a warm orange for that nice warm color on a body. Strobe being around 5600 kelvin is blue when shot with a incandescent setting on the camera, meaning when you take the picture you will have a blueish light from the strobe.

If you shot an incandescent lighting setup which is 2800 kelvin using your camera on strobe setting, you would have a very orange color hue on your picture. When shooting boudoir it is best to match up your lighting color temperature in your camera with your lights actual color temperature.

To color correct a strobe, like previously said, put an orange gel on your strobe to make it a warm color instead of cool color, that’s if you are shooting an indoor scene using the existing settings lamps and furniture lighting for effect.

The following picture shows a scene in which the indoor lights were the primary lights used which have a kelvin temperature of  2800. I could have used a strobe with an orange gel to make the strobe color correct, but instead I chose to use a fresnel hotlight for the fill, then color correction was not needed. There is a lighting diagram following the actual image taken.

Model: Bianca Malise

Model: Bianca Malise

Bianca Malise Lighting Diagram